“Overuse of the arcana. Ivy’s skin looked like this, too,” I reply.
“Can we fix it?”
“It’s forbidden to work on other Belles,” Ada says.
“It’s forbidden to do a lot of things,” I reply.
Valerie startles awake. “Camille? Edel?” her voice croaks.
My knees buckle, all the worry sliding off me.
Edel and I climb into her bed. The size of it almost swallows us.
“How do you feel?” Edel asks.
Her sluggish eyes brighten a little. “Terrible.”
“We’ve come to take you with us,” I say.
“How did you get here?” she asks.
“With a little help,” Edel answers. “And we’re going to go get Charlotte next and put an end to all of this.”
“Where are our sisters?” she asks.
“They’ve been placed all over Orléans, according to the information I have. Padma is trapped at home, Hana is in the Fire Isles, and Amber is in the Glass Isles,” I report.
“Are they all right?”
“We don’t know,” Edel answers, trying to sit her up, but Valerie’s limbs flop every which way and she can barely hold her head straight. “Have you just done beauty work? Is that why you’re so tired?”
“I haven’t done anything.” She fights to keep her eyes open, her lids falling like heavy curtains. “No beauty work in days.”
“They’re bleeding her. I see the vats of blood being taken to the dock every morning,” Ada says.
“But why?” I ask. Valerie is not the aether, so her blood is not being used to grow other Belles.
“I don’t know,” Valerie says, almost out of breath.
More questions add to the storm brewing in my head. What is Sophia up to?
“We have to get you out of here, and get you well.” I push back her once thick hair.
We try to lift her, but she flops back on the bed. I perch over her, wanting my strength to drift into her limbs. The bones in her shoulder push into my leg. A tide of worry rises inside me each time she moans.
“I can’t,” Valerie replies. “I need to rest for a minute.”
“Ada, find some sangsues,” Edel says.
I glance up at the hourglass in the room, the sand racing from one side to the other. We don’t have much time left to get to the boat.
Edel grabs a cloth from the water basin on the side table and drapes it across Valerie’s forehead. “Only for a few minutes, then we have to go.”
“Valerie, I have a question.” The poison in my pocket almost hums, full of power. “When you looked after the Belle babies, how were they grown? Did Du Barry let you see?”
“Why?” she says.
“Sophia is making more Belles, and I need to know how, so we can stop her.”
“She kept two nurseries at home. One for the Gris babies born in the maternity rooms, and one for us.” She coughs, then continues, “Sometimes she’d stay up all night, and I’d sneak into the Belle-nursery to see what she was doing. She’d bring a new crying baby inside after the evening star rose.”
“Did you find out where they came from?”
Valerie nods. “She digs us up.”
“What?” Edel and I say in unison.
“Well, some of us,” she pants. “Out of the dark forest. I saw her from the nursery window.”
“So much for falling from the sky,” Edel snaps.
“No. That’s true.” Valerie takes a deep and labored breath. “But only one Belle falls. She plants the rest—the favored generation, at least, is grown that way.” Her voice grows weaker. “I don’t know how she makes the others.”
I squeeze her hand and reach in my pocket to wrap my fingers around the poison bottle. “One last question before we try to move you again. Do you think Belle babies can be born without their gifts?”
Edel eyes me curiously.
“Why would you want that?” Valerie asks.
“Yes, why?” Edel adds.
“Sophia plans to sell Belles to the highest bidder,” I tell her. Valerie’s mouth goes slack with horror. “If we could save the next generation from this fate—”
“Then they could all live normal lives,” Edel finishes, nodding in agreement with my line of thought.
I show them the poison bottle. “This might take away the arcana. But I wouldn’t know how to administer it. Do you think you could help?”
Valerie’s eyes bulge as she runs shaky fingers across the blue bottle. “I believe so....” Valerie starts to drift off.
“Valerie! Valerie. Stay with us,” Edel says, rubbing her shoulder.
“Should we try to move her again?” I ask, watching Valerie’s eyes flutter.
“Let’s check her levels. She’s so weak, we might have to cover her in sangsues in order to get her strong enough to move.” Edel turns to the side table and retrieves an arcana meter. She plucks needles from the base compartment of the machine and takes Valerie’s arm; it’s a pale brown branch draped across her lap. Valerie’s blood barely fills three vials and slides into the arcana meter’s slots.
I hold my breath as I watch Valerie’s blood swirl through those chambers. The red liquid bubbles and churns. I wonder what her blood proteins look like now. I wish I could see them beneath Mr. Claiborne’s optic-scope. My stomach flip-flops as the numbers begin to illuminate, and reveal her levels.
MANNER: One and a half.
AURA: One.
AGE: Zero.
A knot forms in my throat. She barely has any arcana proteins left in her blood. They are almost gone. This is what will happen to the Belle babies if the poison is successful. Can we survive without our gifts from the Goddess of Beauty? Will she be able to recover?
There’s a crash downstairs. “Time to go,” Edel says. “We have to move her.”
Edel tries to lift Valerie again. I pocket the bottle and help hold up the right side of Valerie’s body. She cries out with pain. Edel tries to wipe away a falling tear, but her fingers miss it.
“If she can’t walk, we’ll be caught,” I reply, trying to hide the panic in my voice. “Ada, can you go get the Fashion Minister and bring him to us? We need him.”
Fear consumes Ada’s face.
I rush to her and take her hands. “He’s on our side. He’s going to help us.”
“What about me?” she asks. “You can’t just leave me here.”
“We won’t. I promise,” I say. “Is anyone else here? More Belles?”
“Yes, they’re chained on the fourth floor. If I’m not back in a quarter of an hourglass, then...”
“You won’t have to worry about that. Just go.”
Ada rushes out. We shift Valerie upright, her legs hanging off the bed.
“Good. Almost up,” I say. “Just a little bit more.”
The teacup dragons shift inside my waist-sash, peeking out, and the dagger at my hip shifts, a half-moon hooked at my side.
“What are those?” Valerie asks.
“Teacup dragons.”
“I thought they didn’t exist. Du Barry said...” Drool dribbles from her lips.
“Du Barry told us a lot of things,” I reply, wiping her face. “They were given to me to help us.”
She runs her fingers along their noses as they lick her, then she touches the dagger sheath Rémy gave me.
“All right, let’s try to take a step.” Edel hoists Valerie’s arm around her neck.
“There’s so much pain,” she cries. “My whole body hurts. It feels like my bones are shattered.”
Edel clears her throat and wipes away the tears brimming in her eyes before Valerie can see them. I’m not so quick, and a tear escapes my eye.
“Edel, Camille, I can’t.” Valerie squeezes my arm with all her strength. “I don’t have anything left.” Her gaze sears into mine, and her message crystallizes as her hand falls to the dagger at my waist. “Things will never be the same again.” She grabs the dagger from its sheath and stabs it into the side of h
er neck. Her body jerks like a bayou fish caught in a net. She exhales. Her mouth goes soft.
Edel screams.
Not a single drop of blood oozes from Valerie’s neck. The wound is dry.
She’s empty.
I stumble backward and off the bed, hitting the floor with a thud.
She’s gone.
“What happened here? I thought we’d embarked on a rescue mission?” the Fashion Minister says, marching into the room with Ada at his side.
“She... she...” The words won’t form.
“She killed herself,” Edel says with a sob.
The Fashion Minister perches over the bed. Valerie’s body stares up at us—her eyes foggy, glazed like glass marbles. Edel drops to her knees. Tears are a storm of fat raindrops down her red cheeks.
The minister covers his mouth briefly, then says, “We have to go, now.”
I can’t move. I’m a statue sitting vigil at her side.
“We can’t leave her like this!” Edel says.
“She’s not here anymore.”
“She needs a proper burial.” Edel’s eyes spill over. “So the Goddess of Beauty will receive her.”
The Fashion Minister drapes a blanket over Valerie’s face. Another sob escapes Edel’s mouth. I am too stunned to cry.
“Hush or we’ll all be caught. My head will be on a spike after an unpleasant tenure in a starvation box. It’s way too beautiful to meet such a fate; I take such excellent care of it. And the two of you will be carted off to Sophia’s prison to be milked for your blood—just like Valerie has been. My dandies will keep the body safe, transport it to Maison Rouge under the strictest of instructions. The corpse will be waiting for you to bury her. Now, we must go!”
“Don’t forget about me,” Ada pleads.
I turn to the Fashion Minister.
He sighs. “Another favor? I can see it all over your face.”
“Can you help get Ada and the other Belles out?” I ask.
“And take them where?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“More breaking of laws,” he says.
“You’ve always done it one way or another,” I remind him. “And when the Goddess of Death weighs your heart at the end of all things, she’ll see what you did for us.”
He leans forward and plants a kiss on my forehead. “If I keep my head long enough to get my husband back, I want to raise a child to have your spirit—and your looks.”
I smile up at him. The thunder of footsteps rises from below and shouts rattle the house.
We scramble.
“I’ll set her and her sisters free, but where they go is up to them,” Gustave says. “My private schooner is waiting for you. It’s not supposed to be out on the open waters, definitely more suited for short-distance travel and through canals and rivers, but we don’t have a choice. My boatman is discreet, having served me for many years and having been privy to all of my dalliances. Just stay inside the cabin. He’ll announce your arrival at the port, then he’ll leave for half an hourglass to give you enough time to disembark in Céline before he returns to me.”
“Thank you. I can’t tell you—”
Madam Renault and her guards march into the room, choking the space and blocking all ways out. “What is going on here?” She paces in a circle, her little heels clicking along the floor. “I had a bad feeling about your visit, Gustave, but to find the favorite and her sister here? That’s another thing entirely.”
My heart sinks.
She gazes at Valerie’s covered body. “What have you done to her?”
“What have you done to her?” Edel snaps, her rage loose and ready.
She laughs. “My duty. But, Gustave, it seems you’re caught in something you shouldn’t be. Something that might cause you to lose your pretty head.”
“You won’t touch him,” I shout, shaking with anger. The teacup dragons peek out of my waist-sash, irritated and hiccuping fire. “Feuille, Fantôme, Poivre, Ryra, and Eau,” I call out. “Burn everything.”
I make a whooshing sound, and they mimic me. They bolt out and above our heads. Their tiny blasts of fire quickly ignite the tapestries.
“Arrest them all,” Madam Renault orders. “And catch those little dragons.”
The guards rush forward.
I pull Rémy’s knife from Valerie’s neck. The tiniest freckles of her blood mar the silver. The last of her. I prepare to use the dagger, though I don’t know how. I think of Rémy. He’d say, They don’t know that you don’t know how to use it. I stab at the guards, pushing them back as the flames grow around us.
Madam Renault fusses with Ada, trying to pull her by the chain. Edel kicks and thrashes at the guards. The Fashion Minister throws anything he can reach in their direction. The teacup dragons’ fire spreads through the room, igniting the bed canopy. It collapses, dropping fiery pieces on Valerie’s blanket. The flames crawl along her body and catch her thick brown hair.
Madam Renault orders the guards to put out the fire.
My eyes blur from the smoke. The guards cough and choke. I can’t see Valerie anymore. I can’t see anything.
The Fashion Minister hollers out, “Run!”
I grab Edel and Ada by their hands and do as he says, stumbling from the room. The teacup dragons follow, still spreading their fire.
Soft beams of moonlight sweep along the ocean as the left eye of the God of the Sky rises. The Silk Isles’ teahouse burns in the distance like a dying star. The edges of the imperial island glare as we sail along its coast—lantern-houses and piers and sill-lanterns in mansions that overlook the waves. The color is so different from the water that surrounds our home. I think of the terrifying stories we were told about the octopus living in the Rose Bayou. But we were never taught what lurked out here, what creatures inhabited the God of the Seas’ vast domain.
“We won’t get there any faster with you watching,” Edel says. “And you’re letting in a draft. The dragons are getting fussy.”
“All the lighthouses are sending beams of light out. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
“No,” she replies. “But it’s freezing.”
I close the drapes and turn back to the small but decadent cabin. The Fashion Minister’s lavish watercoach feels like a palace apartment set afloat. Plush chaises and couches circle a long table holding all the supplies we’ve amassed—Rémy’s maps, a few stolen Belle-products we haven’t had to sell, ink and parchment and a quill, food for the teacup dragons, my beauty caisse full of labeled sangsue bottles, the plump coin purses the Fashion Minister gave us. Fire-lanterns hover throughout, lending their heat to the chilly space. Cabinets boast all manner of treats—roasted nuts, cheese blocks, baskets of macarons, casks of wine and ale. But I have no appetite for any of it. We lost Valerie. We’ll never see her again. I can barely hold that truth in my head.
My throat burns, the taste of the fire still on my tongue. “What if all our sisters are in pain like Valerie?”
“We can’t lose another sister. We need to find a way to get to them,” she says.
“We lost Amber.” It stings saying her name.
Edel’s face is like stone. “I told you, she’s changed.”
My frustration, fueled by grief, bubbles over. “You weren’t at that dinner party with Claudine. You weren’t at the palace. You didn’t see what Sophia did to us. She turned everything into a game. She forced me to give a courtier a pig nose, she broke my hand, she poisoned my food. I didn’t get to talk to Amber about all the things she’d made her do. Sophia is a monster. She bends you into ugly shapes, and I regret every minute of her being able to do that to me.”
“I saw interviews with Amber bragging about being better than us. Better than her sisters. More deserving of the title of favorite.” Edel’s back stiffens, and her hands ball into fists as she readies herself for a fight. “You can’t convince me that she always loved us.”
“We all wanted to be the favorite. That means we had to be better than one an
other,” I remind her. “She just wasn’t nice about it.”
“I never wanted any of that. I never wanted this life.”
“Well, good for you for being above it all. But we’re not all the same. We’re sisters, but we’re not the same.”
“I don’t want to talk about Amber anymore.” Edel turns her back to me and reads a newspaper.
We sit in silence for a while, the worries stretching like dough between us. I take Arabella’s Belle-book from my travel sack. I trace my fingers across the etched arabella flowers on the cover.
Date: Day 3,657 at court
I found the official Belle registry today. Every Belle who ever lived is accounted for. The favored ones and the non-favored ones. There were ledgers here going back thousands of years. Each generation laid out in family clusters. Names scrawled in parchment alongside their best arcana.
I wonder how many Belles there are now, how many Du Barry grew in my generation, and where they might be. The thought of trying to find them all and make sure they’re safe becomes an overwhelming storm. I close Arabella’s book to erase the thoughts.
The teacup dragons stir in their sleep just seconds before there’s a tap on the window.
Startled, I pull back the drapes. Little golden Or perches on the tiny sill. I push the latch to let her in. She doesn’t carry a post-balloon. Instead ribbons loop around her ankle, and she clutches a parchment scroll in her tiny talons.
“You found us, girl.” My heart squeezes.
It’s from Rémy.
Or lands on my lap. I untie the ribbons quickly and free her to reunite with her brothers and sisters.
Edel darts over to me, almost falling due to the rocky motion of the boat.
My fingers fumble with the note as I try to unroll it. His handwriting is neat, each sentence perfectly placed on the page. I’ve never seen it before and the sight of it makes me smile. Edel tries to read over my shoulder, but I pull the letter close so only I can read it.
Camille,
All post-balloons are now subject to monitoring if they leave the city of Trianon. The air-postmen have been given strict surveillance orders. They collect them and transfer the messages into ledgers reviewed by the queen and her staff. If approved, the post-balloons can be released for travel. At night, they’ll be using sky candles to illuminate the entire kingdom to watch for any alternate forms of communication.
The Everlasting Rose (Belles, The) Page 14